Did those who congregated under the walls of the Bastille Prison in Paris on 14 July 1789 have any inkling of what would result from their actions? Did those who welcomed Lenin at the Finland Station in St Petersburg in 1917 foresee what might happen next? Was I today at the start of an educational revolution that will herald a new world for us in higher education? Frankly, I don't know (just as those in Paris and St Petersburg on fateful dates didn't know). But I suspect that even if we don't get a revolution out of today's event, we will at least see a world of new possibilities.
The venue was London - to be more precise, the Conference Suite at the British Library. It was the launch of 'Futurelearn', the UK-based group of universities, led by the Open University, offering MOOCs (Massive Open On-line Courses). Before the formal part of the event I had a long chat with a government adviser about what we were expecting to get out of this new venture. Frankly, we don't really know. We don't know who will take our courses, nor in what numbers, nor where they will be. We don't know how many will go through to the end of them. We don't know how many will want to get some form of certification for the course. We don't know how many might want to pursue an interest in the subject further - for example by signing up to a degree programme. And if they do, we don't know how practicable it will be for them to do so with us (for example through distnace learning programmes) or with someone else.
Martin Bean (VC of the Open Unviersity) and David Willetts both spoke passionately and interestingly, and opened up some new thoughts (at least for me). I will confine myself to three observations that came from what they said, either directly or indirectly.
1. As Martin pointed out, there was an irony in us meeting in the British Library because via our smartphones and iPads we all had access to more information resources than the whole library that surrounded us.
2. David mentioned the recent launch of a broadband-delivering satellite that will improve mobile coverage for the whole of a continent that is hungry for education but where access is limited.
3. David also posited the example of the learner in another part of the world who takes one of our MOOCs and wants to go deeper and further. How can we support them if there is no chance of them coming to study within our universities in the UK, and we don't have pure distance learning programmes available? Is there a case for global alliances of MOOC-delivering universities to direct learners to local providers who themselves then base their programmes on a new internationally-developed pedagogy of materials from across their network?
But I will end with a cautious note. I do have some doubts about the 'level' and 'depth' of the material on offer. two familiar clichés seem appropriate. MOOCs may try to be 'all things to all people', and 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.' I had a brief conversation with Rita Chakrabarti, the BBC Education Correspondent, and she was interested in the first point. It also came up from another journalist in the press briefing. A piece of film we were shown in a persentation concerned how plants fix carbon from the atmosphere and combined it with hydrogen and oxygen (in water) to produce carbohydrate. As was pointed out by a critic, it was an explanation suitable for a 14 year old, but it was far from enough for even an ageing social scientist such as me. .The blurb for almost all the MOOCs launched today said they requierd no prior knowledge and were suitable for anyone with an interest in the subject (there were a couple of exceptions aimed particularly at children, including Sheffield's offering on dentistry). My own view is that if we want to support the MOOCs revolution we will need to be more precise in who we are designing our courses for. And we also need to convince people that the MOOC is only a start for the journey of learning, and that having done a MOOC they don't know it all.
There is a story that when the Chinese leader Zhou Enlai was asked his opinion on what the effects of the French Revolution were he said it was too early to tell. We shall have to wait to see the longer-term significance of today's events at the British library.
2. David mentioned the recent launch of a broadband-delivering satellite that will improve mobile coverage for the whole of a continent that is hungry for education but where access is limited.
3. David also posited the example of the learner in another part of the world who takes one of our MOOCs and wants to go deeper and further. How can we support them if there is no chance of them coming to study within our universities in the UK, and we don't have pure distance learning programmes available? Is there a case for global alliances of MOOC-delivering universities to direct learners to local providers who themselves then base their programmes on a new internationally-developed pedagogy of materials from across their network?
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